


eight to the third power

by jonphaedrus



Series: 8^ [3]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 3, Family Fluff, Gen, Implied Relationships, Jewish Holidays, Jewish Identity, Pesach | Passover, Seder Pesach | Passover Seder (Judaism)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:02:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22994395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/pseuds/jonphaedrus
Summary: Sunny tugged on her bangs, bit her lip. “It’s almost Passover,” she said, still not coming out from behind the door. Snake watched her carefully, his eyes sharp.
Relationships: Otacon & Solid Snake
Series: 8^ [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1645687
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18
Collections: Purimgifts 2020





	eight to the third power

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ArtemisTheHuntress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtemisTheHuntress/gifts).



> eight days of passover in the diaspora, and three times eight as titles! this would have worked more thematically if the second worked but here we have. eight to the third power is 512, which also adds back up to 8.
> 
> i hope you had a lovely purimgifts! i know i did writing these :D

“Uncle Dave?”

Sunny peered around the edge of the doorframe into the bedroom, looking at where her uncle was sitting on the edge of the bed, just finishing getting dressed.

He looked up at Sunny. “Yeah?”

Sunny tugged on her bangs, bit her lip. “It’s almost Passover,” she said, still not coming out from behind the door. Snake watched her carefully, his eyes sharp.

“That’s a Jewish holiday, isn’t it?” Sunny nodded, tugging at her bangs again as he stood up and came over. “Why do you mention it?”

“I want...” she trailed off, biting her lip. “I want to help Uncle Hal have it.” She’d looked it up on the internet when he hadn’t been looking, done a bunch of reading. Hal had kept saying that it was 2015, the first year of the rest of their lives, and he wanted to _live_ a little. He and Uncle Dave had even gone to a Purim celebration the month before.

Snake nodded slowly, his expression closed off and distant as he looked through and past her, thinking. “Okay,” he settled on eventually. “What do we have to do?”

Sunny grinned.

Their weekly grocery run got a lot more complicated when Snake gruffly informed Otacon that he and Sunny would be doing it, and that he should take the time he’d normally be in the grocery store to go get some coffee. Which he did, although he didn’t seem too happy about it, fretting and wringing his hands with worry about letting Snake and Sunny loose without proper adult supervision.

Still, they were very successful, because they got all the things Sunny had found listed as required for Passover: matzah, horseradish, romaine lettuce, parsley, another dozen extra eggs and some egg dye (not required, but Sunny had never dyed eggs and wanted to), a lamb shank, boxed matzah ball soup, and assorted accoutrements. They even found a discount seder plate, albeit made of plastic.

Good enough.

And Uncle Hal had no idea—he rejoined them, relieved to see their normal groceries, and they managed to spirit away or hide all their extra purchases in the recessed depths of the Nomad’s fridge until the time came.

“Hal?” Uncle Dave’s smoke-ragged voice floated up from the main deck. Sunny, flattened down on her belly at the top of the stairs, listened with silent, baited breath. The sound of Uncle Hal grunting as he was disrupted from work hyperfocus, the rustle of Uncle Dave’s hand across the nape of his neck. “Me and the kid are going to make dinner, ok?”

“Oh. Any particular reason?”

“Nah. Parental bonding type stuff, you know.” Uncle Hal made a weird, questioning noise as if he didn’t know, actually, but he wasn’t going to question it too much. “We’ll be busy.”

“Should I be excited?” He sounded a little nervous, and Sunny started to chew her lip.

Uncle Dave’s laugh was warm and low. “No. You’ll like it.”

They started cooking that afternoon, going from recipes that Sunny had painstakingly printed out in large font so that Uncle Dave could read them without his reading glasses, prepping the table and seder plate, chilling wine and putting out the free haggadahs that she had printed. They made a chicken, a huge pot of bubbling matzah ball soup, and a bowl of colorful boiled eggs, parsley with a cold bowl of saltwater.

They were parked in Hawaii, at the Navy base, for some work thing her uncles had to do—but it had been a great excuse to invite their friends, because right at dinnertime, Uncle Dave’s phone rang and he fumbled it up to answer as he was cooking. “Yeah? You’re here? Okay.”

When six o’clock sharp rolled around, they had “covertly” (well, past Uncle Hal with his headphones on and music blasting, zoned deep into a Wikipedia article on the history and development of nut-based butters) snuck their half-dozen friends upstairs and finished prepping the table. When everything was perfect, Uncle Dave eyed their arrayed holiday celebration with all the exactitude he could muster, and, finally, gave her a slow nod.

Sunny clattered down the stairs and threw herself into the side of his chair. “Uncle Hal!” He jumped, dazed, still mentally alt-tabbed. She tugged at his sleeve until he pulled his headphones off. “Dinner!”

“Oh,” Hal took a quick sniff. “Wow, that smells great, Sunny. What did you and Dave make?”

“It’s a surprise!” Sunny grabbed his sleeve, pulled him backwards toward the stairs. “Come on!” Laughing, he followed her upwards to the main cabin, tousling her hair as they climbed up into the dining room.

When they got up and Hal saw what was waiting for him, he went very quiet. They had pushed together their three free tables to make one long table, and all the old card table legs were bending and buckling with the weight of the food atop them. Their kitchen was full of Meryl and Johnny, Mei Ling, Raiden, Rosemary, and John—and Uncle Dave, seated at the opposite end of the table from Hal’s open chair, Sunny’s right next to it.

“It’s Passover,” Uncle Dave provided, with the calm assuredness of a man used to surprising people, as Uncle Hal continued to gape. “We made a Seder.” He gestured with one hand to the open seat, next to the seder plate. “And we got instruction manuals.” he tapped the haggadah he had in front of him with one knuckle. “It’s transliterated, so we can all stumble through with you.” Sunny held onto Hal’s sleeve, waiting, looking patiently up at him as he took it in, processing what he was seeing.

And then, much to her surprise, he bent down, caught her up in his arms, crossed the room to pull Uncle Dave out of his chair, too, dragging them both into a giant hug. Hal burst into tears, hiding them in the side of Dave’s collar, and the rest of the table began to laugh as Hal sobbed and laughed at turns, Dave helping him hold Sunny up as she clung on around his neck.

“You guys are the best,” he admitted at last, voice still choked up. “I have no idea what we’re doing, but let’s try.”

Sunny loved her parents.


End file.
